


sticks and stones, hickeys and bruises

by earlgrey_milktea



Series: milktea's saso2017 fills [33]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hate Sex, Love/Hate, M/M, Prompt Fill, Relationship Study, but only vaguely implied, future fic of sorts, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-01 16:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11490120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgrey_milktea/pseuds/earlgrey_milktea
Summary: When all is said and done, they sit on opposite sides of the bed, each nursing their own wounds. Collateral damage.Somehow, they always end up here.yahaba and kyoutani share something that burns like a wildfire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> original prompt [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=13829489#cmt13829489)
> 
>  **quote:**  
>  "Don't look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren't mine.”  
> ―Nora Sakavic, _The King's Men_
> 
> shoves the both of them into a huge get-along shirt that just says "it's complicated"

When all is said and done, they sit on opposite sides of the bed, each nursing their own wounds. Collateral damage. Kyoutani has a scratch down the side of his neck,  something purple forming on his right cheek. Shigeru’s hair is a mess from where Kyoutani had his fingers buried and tangled moments before. He tastes blood on his tongue.

Somehow, they always end up here.

Shigeru has known from the first time he met that heated, hungry, and strangely hollow gaze that he was heading down a winding road without an end in sight. Kyoutani’s eyes are an endless abyss of the darkest gold, like a wolf’s stare from the shadows, preying into the dustiest and most isolated corners of Shigeru’s soul, breaking him apart over and over until Shigeru’s knees are shaking and muscles are aching and he’s left panting breathless and torn between hating the other boy and hating himself.

And it’s clear—there’s a lot of bad blood between them. They’ve squabbled like cats and dogs since they were dumb kids with egos heavier than they knew how to carry, the steady salty taste of pride resting like a blade against their tongue. Shigeru has grown used to the flames that turn his veins into electrified barbed wire whenever Kyoutani enters his orbit, but it’s the kind of burning that leaves his soul sore, the kind of wildfire that leaves something Shigeru’s too afraid to name rattling like loose change in his ribcage. There’s a lot of bad blood between them, but Shigeru’s not entirely  convinced there’s love lost.

They barely even know how to be friends without tearing at each other’s throats, biting and leaving marks on bare skin, intimate places where no one like them should ever have access to. They don’t know what love is. 

There’s a darkness in Kyoutani, a hunger that scares Shigeru just as much as it fascinates him. Once upon a time, Shigeru thought he could fill that hole, that he could fix the relentless  _ need _ in Kyoutani. But if Shigeru is an idiot, he’s a self-aware idiot. 

Once upon a time, Shigeru thought that Kyoutani could fill the throbbing emptiness in Shigeru himself.

But he can’t. Neither of them can.

So they go around like this, hurting each other until they can’t bleed anymore, slinking off to lick at their wounds, only to pull each other back, helplessly, hopelessly.

“Just go,” Shigeru says, too loud into the silence of the room, too loud to hide the waver in his voice. He doesn’t look at Kyoutani.

And of course, Kyoutani stays. There’s a shift on the bed, and then calloused palms pressing into Shigeru’s naked sides. His hands are warm. He has no fucking right to be this gentle.

“I hate you,” Shigeru says, but both of them are tired of hearing it by now.

“I know,” Kyoutani replies anyway. And when he presses his cracked lips against Shigeru’s shoulder, fingers digging into the bone at his hips and tugging, Shigeru goes with him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other’s wounds; they repair the broken skin.
> 
> ―Lauren Oliver, _Pandemonium_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original prompt [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=16559729#cmt16559729)

The thing with Yahaba is that he doesn’t like touch.

Team sports is one thing. Roughhousing and slaps on the back, sudden headlocks and arms around the shoulder, high fives and butt slaps—that’s all part of the deal. Yahaba seems fine with that. At least, from what you observe. He doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t shrink away. He laughs and punches back.

But when it’s just the two of you, when it’s quiet and the clubroom has mostly emptied out, Yahaba shies away. He avoids your eyes, and then he glares at you until you glare back. He freezes when you reach out, he stays too still when your hand hovers. He turns away when he’s changing but you catch him staring more often than not. He doesn’t flinch, not exactly, but he definitely twitches when your fingers bump against each other on the walk home. 

You don't understand this game he plays. You don’t understand why you keep coming back and trying your luck anyway.

The first time you have sex, in your bedroom with the yellow glow of the streetlamp flooding in through your apartment window and the smell of beer heavy on both of your tongues, Yahaba trembles. He trembles so much you almost stop, if not for the sharp pinch of his fingernails digging into your back. He shakes against you, each shiver resonating with your own steady heartbeat, legs locked tight and eyes fierce when you meet them. He kisses you like he punches you, hard and fast and almost too willing to draw blood. You kiss him back just as unrelentingly. You’re pretty sure this isn’t how making love is supposed to work.

But then again, you don’t even have the nerve to call whatever it is between you and Yahaba  _ love _ . 

The thing with you is, you’ve always been drawn to small, trembling things, trying so hard to put on a brave face when they can never hide their vulnerability. Your pet dog is one you rescued when you got lost on the way home. You visit shelters in your spare time. You stop by the street corners to feed the stray cats. There’s a rush in you, knowing that you hold the power to provide for these small helpless beings, even though you know they can never fill the void in your chest.

And no matter how harshly Yahaba talks to you, no matter how proudly he tilts his chin up, there’s something that quivers in his eyes that you’re inexplicably drawn to. Yahaba is afraid of something, something he doesn’t want to deal with, and you know all about that kind of fear. Everyone’s afraid of something. Yahaba is afraid of intimacy.

You, you’re afraid of committing.

It’s funny, because you’re both terrible at this. He still responds to you like every word is a challenge, and you don’t know how to ask to hold hands so you just trail behind him like an idiot. So you’re stuck in a perpetual cycle of baring teeth and biting in, silent treatments and getting drunk enough to call, chasing each other like cornered animals until you end up fucking on somebody’s couch—if you even make it that far past the doorway.

The thing is, you’ve never really had someone like this before. Being alone is a normal you’ve come to hide in, but Yahaba crashes through that so effortlessly. And you let him. Over and over again. It almost starts to feel right. You can almost convince yourself that you two can make it work.

He doesn’t really like to stay, after you’ve left marks all over each other’s skin. But sometimes, the weariness catches up to him, and you watch the flushed skin of his naked back as he faces the window, always away from you. But sometimes, you’ll reach over, so slowly so as not to startle him, and trace your fingertips across his skin. And sometimes, he’ll stiffen at the contact and you’ll watch, fascinated at the goosebumps rising all over him, but he’ll stay. He’ll let you shift closer, until you’re pressed together again, but this time still, this time quiet, this time something almost tender.

The thing is, you don’t really know how to keep a person. There’s a burning intensity within you that you know scares everybody else away. But Yahaba, he looks at you with flames for eyes and he clings onto you just as tightly as you hold onto him. This is the kind of desperation that won’t last, you know this. This is the kind of helplessness that is surely on its way to breaking.

But gods. He’s reaching for you again, and you’re giving in again, and—and if this is bound to fall apart and leave the both of you bleeding, then fuck it, you think. You’ll take what you can get. 

**Author's Note:**

> @puddingcatbae twitter/tumblr!!


End file.
